Making Money

for his little walk in the garden, will you? I really don’t think the young clerks give him enough time.”
    A brief spell of thundery weather passed across the chief cashier’s face, but he obediently took a red leash from a hook.
    The little dog began to growl.
    Bent also took down a pair of heavy leather gloves and deftly put them on. As the growling increased, he picked up the dog very carefully and held it under one arm. Without uttering a word, he left the room.
    “Ah, so you are the famous postmaster general,” said Mrs. Lavish. The man in the golden suit, no less. But not this morning, I note. Come here, dear boy. Let me look at you in the light.”
    Moist advanced, and the old lady got awkwardly to her feet by means of a pair of ivory-handled walking sticks. Then she dropped one and grabbed Moist’s chin. She stared intently at him, turning his head this way and that.
    “Hmm,” she said, stepping back. “It’s as I thought…” The remaining walking stick caught Moist a whack across the back of the legs, scything him over like a straw. As he lay stunned on the thick carpet, Mrs. Lavish went on, triumphantly: “You’re a thief, a trickster, a charlie artful, and an all-round bunco artist! Admit it!”
    “I’m not!” Moist protested weakly.
    “Liar, too,” said Mrs. Lavish cheerfully. “And probably an impostor! Oh, don’t waste that innocent look on me! I said you are a rogue, sir! I wouldn’t trust you with a bucket of water if my knickers were on fire!”
    Then she prodded Moist in the chest, hard. “Well, are you going to lie there all day?” she snapped. “Get up, man. I didn’t say I didn’t like you!”
    Head spinning, Moist got cautiously to his feet.
    “Give me your hand, Mr. Lipwig,” said Mrs. Lavish. “Postmaster general? You are a work of art! Put it here!”
    “What? Oh…” Moist grasped the old woman’s hand. It was like shaking hands with cold parchment.
    Mrs. Lavish laughed. “Ah, yes. Just like the forthright and reassuring grasp of my late husband. No honest man has a handshake as honest as that. How in the world has it taken you so long to find the financial sector?”
    Moist looked around. They were alone, his calves were sore, and there was no fooling some people. What we have here, he told himself, is a Mk.1 Feisty Old Lady: turkey neck, embarrassing sense of humor, a gleeful pleasure in mild cruelty, direct way of speaking that flirts with rudeness and, more important, also flirts with flirting. Likes to think she’s “no lady.” Game for anything that doesn’t carry the risk of falling over and with a look in her eye that says “I can do what I like, because I am old. And I have a soft spot for rascals.” Old ladies like that were hard to fool, but there was no need to. He relaxed. Sometimes it was a sheer relief to drop the mask.
    “I’m not an impostor, at least,” he said. “Moist von Lipwig is my given name.”
    “Yes, I can’t imagine that you would have had any choice in the matter,” said Mrs. Lavish, heading back to her seat. “However, you seem to be fooling all of the people all of the time. Sit down, Mr. Lipwig. I shall not bite.” This last was said with a look that transmitted: “But give me half a bottle of gin and five minutes to find my teeth and we shall see!” She indicated a chair next to her.
    “What? I thought I was being dismissed!” said Moist, playing along.
    “Really? Why?”
    “For being all those things you said?”
    “I didn’t say I thought you were a bad person,” said Mrs. Lavish. “And Mr. Fusspot likes you and he is a remarkably good judge of people. Besides, you’ve done wonders with our post office, just as Havelock says.” Mrs. Lavish reached down beside her and pulled a large bottle of gin onto the desktop. “A drink, Mr. Lipwig?”
    “Er…not at this time.”
    Mrs. Lavish sniffed. “I don’t have much time, sir, but fortunately I have a lot of gin.” Moist watched her pour a marginally sublethal measure into a tumbler.
    “Do you have a young lady?” she asked, raising the glass.
    “Yes.”
    “Does she know what you’re like?”
    “Yes. I keep telling her.”
    “Doesn’t believe you, eh? Ah, such is the way of a woman in love,” sighed Mrs. Lavish.
    “I don’t think it worries her, actually. She’s not your average girl.”
    “Ah, and she sees your inner self? Or perhaps the carefully constructed inner self you keep around for people to find? People like you…” she